When I Grow Up
by boothful
Summary: They say children take on after their parents, but Riza and her father couldn't be more different. After all, who are you supposed to be when your father's a mad alchemist. There's only room for one eccentric person in the family, right?
1. Chapter 1

_What do you want to be when you grow up? (200-500 words, use cursive)._

In 4th grade, nobody takes the answer seriously. And why should they? Those who had an answer ready at hand filled out their lined exam sheets with outlandish occupations, like "Pirate" or "Acrobatic", listing adventure, fame, and fun as motivations. In the real world, jobs didn't work that way. You need money to afford your house, food, electricity, and clothes. Fame or adventure might bring you some of that, but it could also land you in trouble, like that man they learned about in history class last week. They said he was famous because he started the fight with the military in Pendleton 13 years ago, and more than a thousand people died.

And fun? Well, in the real world, you had to buy fun, too. It was one of the few things Berthold espoused that Riza could agree with.

Riza Hawkeye tapped the old eraser nub on the desk, trying hard to think through the hectic scratching of pen on paper. Julie had already written two sentences on why she wanted to be a famous singer just like Stephanie Silver who sang on the radio every weekend. Maybe Riza just needed to think like her, be a _kid_ for _once_ like her teachers and Mr Bailey always lamented she wasn't.

 _"When I grow up,"_ she carefully wrote, keeping her vowels neat and even, _"I want to be"_...

 _"... a ballerina!"_ read Ms Haraway out loud. "Why, Riza, I didn't know you could dance! We'll have to put you in the talent show next year so you can show us all your graceful moves!"

Riza's cheeks flushed. She fought to not let herself sink lower in her chair against the tittering giggles and whispers of her classmates - showing shame only gave them more power. The joke wasn't cruelly intended. Ms Haraway only wanted to see her lighten up more. She didn't know she was just handing ammunition to her irreverent wards.

Besides, being singled out for the class' mockery was irrelevant. They always found something to laugh at no matter what anyone did. It was the assignment that was the problem. School was supposed to help you learn, and how could you learn if you were lying?

The graded assignments were distributed before the class break. The circled 'A' on the top corner of the page hypocritically replaced the usual C- Riza earned for most of her creative writing homework. She lied, and it got her first A in years of Ms Haraway's class. How was that even fair, anyway?

She stuffed the incriminating report into her bag, making up her mind to burn it tomorrow on the way home.

The lake shed was a little out of the way, but school was out early the next day so Riza could afford to stop there for a few minutes before rushing home to do the laundry and prepare supper. Berthold had given the report a lackluster glance at the dinner table last night before telling Riza she needed to study harder and get better grades if she wasn't going to apply herself to alchemy, obviously not seeing the bright red letter. Riza tore the A off first and watched the flames in the tin bucket devour it greedily.

The rest of the report followed it. Sitting on the ground in front of the small fire, arms wrapped around her knees, Riza's thoughts drifted back to the original assignment. It wasn't a good question, she decided. After all, she was already many things: a cook, a laundry maid, a logger, a handyman, a gardener, a student. She'd probably keep being most of those things, too. There was a better way to answer the question.

An idea struck her. Riza grabbed her school bag and dug into its depths for a spare sheet of paper. Not finding one, she turned to the small shed for something she could turn into a substitute. There was an old carton of plaster powder in one of the crooked shelves. She set to work, drawing a little water from the lake, and turning a handful of powder into a thin, white tablet. A sharpened twig standing in for a stylus, she scratched the new question into the top.

 _Who do you want to be when you grow up?_ she wrote, leaving out the dictate for cursive. She paused after the question mark, tapping the stick lightly in an off-kilter rhythm as she mulled over how to begin her answer.

 _"I don't know who I want to be yet,"_ Riza etched, _"but I know who I don't want to be._

 _"I don't want to be a liar. People say lying is easy - Berthold says sometimes lying is good. He lies all the time, to the grocer, to the landowner, and to himself. He says he was sick so he couldn't work, or that the money from mom's inheritance never came in the mail, and those lies make sure we can keep living in our home. But sometimes, he lies to me, too, and he thinks I don't know. It makes me think he's stupid and untrustable. I don't want anyone to think that about me._

 _"But most of all, I don't want to lie to me."_

Riza put the stick down and blew the plaster dust away from her neat script. The words seemed heartfelt and poetic when she wrote them, but seeing them carved into the tablet, she was dismayed by their childishness. Like a kid playing King's scribe.

The shed door creaked. "Riza, are you in here?" Jenny asked hesitantly, her matter-of-fact way of speaking twisting the question into a statement.

Quick as a flash, Riza flung the tablet behind the small log pile where it shattered with a tinkling sound on the wooden floor and looked over her shoulder to the door. Jenny's dark braids swung from her silhouetted head on the doorway.

"Hello Jenny," said Riza, scooting over to make space for her. "Done at the store?" Jenny was two years older than Riza but she sat in the 3rd-grade classes. Her parents worked the farmland and provided fresh groceries for over 100 families. They were always short on field workers during the four seasonal harvests so Jenny rarely showed up at Yiug's only elementary school. Sometimes, Riza sat with her for lunch or walked with her to her parents' grocery store after school.

"No, I snuck out," admitted Jenny. She looked serious. "You should go home. Someone from the military was at the shop asking where your dad lives."

"A soldier?" asked Riza, scrambling to her feet.

"No, this man was definitely more important than that," Jenny told her gravely as Riza stuffed her school books back in the bag. "He was very polite, but he also called your dad a sneaky shut-in."

Riza bristled, slinging her bag over her shoulder. Berthold wasn't a nice man, and Jenny's mom was probably right when she said he was a bad father that one time, but who was this military man to call him names? Waving her thanks to Jenny for the warning, Riza took off towards the rundown stone mansion she and her father called home.

What had he done this time? The gravel kicked up in her wake spattered like little pinpricks on the back of her calves. He sent that super hard-lined apprentice from the lawyer family back home after only three months of his contract (a little over 10 weeks, actually, but that wasn't the argument Berthold made at the semiformal inquiry). They said could burn him to the ground and he'd been stupid enough to laugh in their faces like a maniac. Ugh, why did he have to be so... so...

She rushed up the shambles stairs - the boot tracks were starting to get noticeable, she'd give it a wash tomorrow after school, if Berthold wasn't going to prison. The thought sobered her. She slowed her gait and walked in as calm and dutifully as she could.

"Father, I'm home," she said, careful to pitch her voice the same as she always did every day while slowly looking to the two sitting rooms on either side of the entrance foyer.

A thin, balding man was sitting in the armchair Berthold usually filled with books he was still reading, and the man himself was standing, arms crossed defensively by the fake rest chemistry set he put in the sitting room to fool anyone who happened to get a look at his precious research. Their conversion came to an abrupt halt.

Berthold's shoulders slackened. "Oh," he said, looking at her like he had forgotten she was supposed to be home. "Riza."

"Father, I... I'm home." Her eyes slid to the stranger. His deep blue uniform was crisp and vibrant. Riza suddenly realized how faded and tattered everything in the room was.

"So," the strange man said leaning forward, reminding Riza that the sitting room was also discomfortingly crowded, "this is my granddaughter." A thin, veiny hand extended to her. Riza stared at it. His granddaughter?

"Are you really that cruel!" Berthold insisted with nervous anger. "There's no reason to overwhelm her." The phrase snapped Riza right out of it. She heard some of the moms talking while at the grocery store about how the government sometimes takes pity on children from bad families who can't take care of them properly and puts them in 'better' homes. If this man thought Berthold wasn't a good dad, they'd take her away.

She instantly put her hand in the stranger's and shook it. His hand was strong and firm, more than she expected from his skinny fingers. It didn't hurt like the handshake Mr Kyle from metrics gave her on his birthday. "Are you in the military?" she asked because kids her age were supposed to be curious and unfiltered. Besides, he'd understand if she was worried. State officials didn't usually make house calls.

The man chuckled. "I am. I'm General Grumman. Have you heard about me?"

Riza glanced at her dad, who was beginning to fidget with the elbows of his shirt. "I don't know. We don't really talk about the military a lot here. It's..." she paused, wondering if it was the right thing to say.

"Hm," General Grumman, stroking his greying mustache. "I suppose I should have started off with a letter or two... Oh, wait, I believe I _did_ send a post a couple months back."

"I already told you," Berthold grumbled. "It gets lost all the time, either in here or on the way. Yiug is a remote place."

"It certainly is," agreed the general.

His eyes, they were the same blue as Riza's! His hair was already going grey, but that blond might have been close to hers once, too! Riza never knew a lot about mom, except that she was a casualty of war. A grenade, hidden in the bushes along, left forgotten for years by the side of the road on one of the less frequently used passes. Maybe this man... really was her grandfather.

The general was looking at her, too. He was far more subtle about it, but Riza caught the way his eyes kept shifting back to her. Now, he winked and turned back to Berthold.

"Anyway, I do apologize for dropping by unannounced. But I wanted to meet my granddaughter." General Grumman smiled again, blue glinting over the rims of thin, half-moon glasses.

"And?" said Berthold gruffly.

"And I have a proposal for you." Grumman didn't seem to mean any harm but Berthold bristled anyway.

"I'm not working with the state, Grumman!" he said, cold and unrepentant. "And I told you after Eleanor died, if you're still a dog of the military, then I don't want you around my daughter."

The man who was, apparently, her grandfather let out a sigh and hung his head. That was weird. This man felt like a complete stranger. An interesting one, of course, but he was also a husband, a father, and a general, at least. He'd clearly had a full, busy life. It must have taken hard work and sacrifice to build and maintain that life - he even lost his daughter to the consequences of his career. So, it wasn't such a big deal he didn't know his granddaughter. It wasn't like Riza could ever really get to know him anyway after the military killed mom.

He stood up and extended a hand to Berthold, who looked like he would rather have left it hanging though he begrudgingly shook it. Grumman offered the same to Riza. "I hope we'll be able to get to know each other one day," he said with another pleasant smile.

"Thank you for coming by," Riza said, bowing slightly in apology for her father's brittle method of bringing the visit to a close.

He straightened his jacket and walked out the door. Berthold sank into the armchair wearily. His tired eyes looked at Riza and after a moment he sat up. "How are your friends at school? Are you still playing with Sonya and, uh, Judy?" he asked.

Riza hovered in the doorway. "No, Sonya's family moved North City last fall. I still see _Jenny_ sometimes, when she's at school."

"Ah, right, right." Berthold nodded. His bony hand reached out and encircled her. "Riza. I want you to know I'm not being unfair or stubborn this time. Grumman is a dangerous man. It's his job to order young men and women to kill."

Riza took his hand in both of hers. There was nothing she could say to her father to let him know she understood. The only outcome of war was dead people. That was another belief Riza shared with her father, though she sometimes dreamt that his hatred for Amestris Blue was more about mom than principle. But she could agree that the government sending soldiers in to kill their own civilians even if they were rioting was a terrible thing.

Berthold smiled broadly at his daughter. "You're a good daughter," he said, patting her head.

Riza smiled back. He may be a rude, grouchy person who used lies like bread for breakfast, and he wasn't all that present and available to do the stuff good fathers do for their children, but if there was one thing Berthold never lied about, it was his beliefs, and for that Riza could put up with all the rest. After all, how many people could say their father was an alchemist, who worked for the people, who only taught students willing to do the same, and who unfailingly stayed true to his convictions?

Ridiculous, stubborn, so ground in his own myopic concrete ideals that he couldn't even consider broadening his own mind for _one second_ to see anything from her perspective!

Riza fled the house, her eyes stinging with angry tears she refused to shed.

"Get back here young lady!" her father's voice blasted across the front porch but she'd already cleared the tall grass opposite the road. The line of trees that marked the end of the Hawkeye estate was only 500 meters away - Berthold never chased her so far.

He was so selfish! All Riza wanted to do was sign up for the long-range firing competition. 5 months of working in Mr Bailey's mechanic shop in exchange for the use of his rifle and makeshift target range wasn't an easy thing to manage! She'd had to wake up even earlier to get the chores done - did Berthold even see her chopping the wood or darning his socks by candlelight at 4:30 in the morning? Did he even care that her grades hadn't fluctuated one bit? That she had dinner ready on time, that the food cabinet was always stocked, that the mess of old bits and bobs he refused to throw away were always clean and organized?

Sure, she'd expected him to forbid her from the competition, but who was he to tell her she wasn't allowed to work for Mr Bailey? She wasn't 10 anymore! She was almost a 9th grader!

Berthold didn't care. She could be 30 and he'd probably still scream and shout spittle at any decision she'd make that even so much as breathed the wrong way near one of his principles.

Jenny was already at the shed, but she hadn't gone inside. Instead, she was sitting relaxed, playing with a beheaded reed against the wall; she quickly stood when Riza came crashing through the underbrush. "So, how'd it... oh." Jenny looked disappointed, reading the thunder on Riza's face. "I guess he won't let you play."

"He also quit my job for me," Riza fumed.

Jenny's eyes bulged. "But why?" she gaped, mystified. "I thought he'd be glad you got a job!"

"He said, 'guns are the same as the military and no daughter of mine is ever getting caught up in that traitorous cult.'" Riza plonked on the ground and Jenny followed her, making a sympathetic grimace. "When I'm old enough, I'm going to leave," Riza told her. "I'll get another job, for money this time, save up and go to North City."

"What will you do then?" whispered Jenny conspiratorially.

Riza remembered the images in the daily newspapers and the magazine stall of ladies working with large radio boards, in simple but stylish plain dresses and smiles on their faces. by the old factory. "I'll find a job working for a phone company," she decided. "I heard there are small houses in North City, with just enough space for one person or hostels that only provide room and board to single women. I could live there. And I could go a real gun range."

Jenny grinned. "I can see you as a hunter," she said, rocking back and forth distractedly. She hunched down and put on a masculine scowl, scrunching her upper lip up to her nostrils, "'I'm Riza Hawkeye, and I can hit that there deer from a thousand meters!'"

"Actually, a regular rifle has a 400-meter range, on average," Riza corrected her, but Jenny had made her grin despite herself, so she lent her a real smile to soften it.

Jenny waved her amendment away. Her face grew sober, making her look older than her 16 years. "I'm actually pretty impressed with you," she said, giving Riza a strange look.

"Really?" If she thought about it, Riza was impressed with herself, too. She'd taught herself how to shoot in only 5 months, with a lousy gun and less than that same amount of hours of sleep per night.

"Of course," said Jenny emphatically. "Your dreams were just shattered and you're not even crying or all that angry, really."

Riza blinked at her own confusion. "What do you mean?"

"Well, you just treat it like a piece of chalk that broke because a kid dropped it," continued Jenny, oblivious to Riza's growing displeasure. "Like, it's no big deal, it's just a part of life. Then you make a plan, and it's problem solved. See? You're not even angry at your dad anymore."

"You're wrong."

Jenny looked surprised and a little hurt, so Riza threw her a brighter look to reassure her it wasn't meant to be mean. The lake was grey and cold, the evening fog beginning to creep over the water and up the banks. "I am angry at him. I'm so, so angry at him." But even as she said the words, Riza understood why Jenny had that impression. She didn't speak with the same passion Jenny or the rest of her classmates did when they were excited or angry, and she was often told by adults that she was a bossy, but pleasant going girl although Berthold always complained about her attitude. She didn't mean to look emotionless all the time. It was just that showing excitement or sadness in her face gave the bullies power.

Besides, what was the point of just staying angry? It didn't change anything. If you wanted something to change, you had to make it change and that took effort. Being angry took effort, too. So, change the situation so you don't have to get angry again.

She took the reed from Jenny's fingers and twisted it into a thin ring. "I just... I should go home."

Jenny sighed. "Yes, it's getting darker so fast these days. It didn't get dark so early last year."

It did. There was absolutely nothing different at all this year. It always got darker earlier as the autumn turned into winter.

"Yes," Riza lied. "How strange."

The next day in class, while Mr Kyle was busy writing sums on the board, she drafted a letter. Shooting was her hobby, she wrote, and she wanted to build her own rifle but she didn't know how. Would the recipient have any suggestions for which parts were the best for a beginner, and where she could procure them all the way out in the northern countryside? She addressed it to General Grumman and handed it off to the postman the next day when he came to drop off the usual load of bills, fragile packages of chemistry equipment, and letters from potential clients. It had been 4 years since she first saw the old man who claimed to be her mother's father. If he really was her grandfather, he'd probably send a reply back.

Was it lying if Berthold didn't know?


	2. Chapter 2

"I'm home," Riza said, leaving the front door open behind her. It was a sunny spring day and the house could use some airing out. She stepped around the boxes stacked near the hallway entry, careful not to snag the bags on the corner, and headed to the kitchen. The new apprentice was going to arrive today and there were still a lot of props she needed to set up. She'd already taken her school books to the lake shed, as well as some blankets and rough soap for washing up in the morning. All that was left to do was change into her thick work clothes and boots and find a way to sneak the rifle out of the house to the old cave across the lake. No "poor Riza Hawkeye" comments this time.

This new strategy worked on the last few apprentices – the previous three boys stayed between 6 and 8 months! The strategy was simple: her focus would be completely centered on the organization of the house, which she would promptly leave whenever Berthold started laying into her. It made her unapproachable and gave the young men no reason to get up to any white knight antics on her behalf.

Riza hefted the packed bags onto the kitchen counter and started sorting the groceries when the back door leading from the kitchen to the little herb garden caught her eye. It looked different somehow. She set down the aubergine beside the sink and went to it. It had been broken for about two months after the last boy slammed it on his way out.

It was fixed. Which meant...

Riza opened the back door and stepped out onto the small walkway that led around the garden and around the west of the house.

Sitting in the dirt, reciting the periodic table backward, was the new boy. He'd already been here for about an hour if he was this far into the initiation ritual Berthold put his pupils through. 1. Fix the door, 2. Recite the periodic table, forward and backward, 3. Read in full Florence Gregorowich Bartholomew Smitt's 'Treaty of Ethics and Alchemy: 201 Essays'. Riza was off to a late start.

The boy looked up at her, his dark eyes glinting joyfully. She'd seen someone who looked like him before - one of those rich foreigners from the countries far in the east that sometimes came to settle in Amestris' capital. The gossip pages were always talking about them.

He didn't pause in his recital, carefully enunciating the atomic mass of tungsten. His eyes traveled up to the open window of Berthold's study above him, where the old man was likely listening, and back to her. The fresh sheets Riza had hung in the morning billowed loudly in the wind. Riza left the dark-haired, narrow-eyed boy and the laundry there and went back inside to get on with supper.

It wasn't long before Berthold strolled through the kitchen and out the back door. "Alright, so you're not a complete idiot," she heard him growl before proceeding to quiz the boy on the composition of basic materials. The boy answered each question with abrupt precision until he tripped up somewhere. Riza couldn't hear him, but Berthold's condescending tone carried back in through the open door. Their voices quieted as Berthold led the boy around to the front of the house. He'd fallen into the rhythm of keeping his students away from Riza as much as possible.

"But even clever men can end up fools of their own desires," her father's voice returned from the front door. "Why do you want to learn alchemy, boy?"

Riza shook her head to herself, checking on the rice while whisking the flour and water into a thick batter. She could just picture him, standing nose to nose with the boy, who'd probably be trembling at the closeness of his new teacher's intense face.

"I..." the boy stammered - the batter was almost at the right consistency - "It's the only thing I'm good at."

The sliced aubergine made little plopping sounds as they hit the batter. It was ridiculous that so many of the boys who came here said that when they usually left thinking they knew more about alchemy, if not life than Berthold. The oil on the stove wasn't hot enough yet, but the rice water had just started boiling. She laid out the towels to catch the excess oil as Berthold made an unpleasant, throaty sound. Not good enough an answer for him, either.

"That's just the sort of thing children say!" he chastised. "You have these grandiose ideas of what alchemy is. You think if you can fix a door or a pavement or make the soil a little easier to till you're powerful, but alchemy is more than just creating things. You have to destroy in order to create. Destruction is complex, difficult to control. If you are to stay my pupil, I expect you to study harder than you've ever studied before. You'll listen and follow every instruction I give you, with no questions or backtalk, and you'll follow the rules I lay out. I have no time to teach children who think alchemy is art or another career choice. Disobey, and I'll send you home."

Their voices were lost in the spluttering hissing of batter meeting oil. The same lecture - Riza could quote it word for word. That boy was in for a rough ride. Riza didn't know whether to hope for his sake or her own sanity that he'd drop out sooner rather than later. She didn't know about foreigners, but it was safe to say that rich families made the worst clients.

When the food was ready she set the table, letting the smell of piping hot cutlets and fried rice announce the meal for her while she slipped upstairs and retrieved the duffle bag out of the bedroom-turned-storage-space in the west wing. The clinking of metal striking metal was dull but noticeable through the thick material. She made a note to pack the parts more securely as she carefully moved a floorboard under her bed and stuffed the bag into the opening. She'd sneak it out on a study night.

Berthold and his apprentice were already seated. Riza pulled up her own chair and took the rice Berthold passed.

"Everything is connected," Berthold said the words like he wanted to clobber the boy with them. "A true alchemist respects that balance. You must never, _ever_ upset that balance for any reason! That would be the worst abuse and betrayal of the very source that gives you power."

"How do you know if your actions are upsetting the balance, master?" asked the boy, eager for this wealth of knowledge to descend upon him.

Berthold scoffed. Riza tuned them out until the plates were empty and she could clear them away.

Well, tomorrow was another half day at school for 10th graders, and Widow Coleson had taken the opportunity to schedule her at the library in the afternoon so Riza would be out of the house for most of the day. She could do the laundry by the shed, and the general tidying up right before nightfall. Dinner would be late, but they'd probably get carried away and lose track of time anyway.

ooooo

Any day now. It would happen any day. The young dark-haired man with intense dark eyes and persistently pleasant demeanor wouldn't be able to just look on in silence.

It could be the hoarding. The stone mansion should have room to house a party of 12 easily, but Berthold couldn't bring himself to throw anything out so most of the upper floor had been turned into some kind of informal storage space. In one room, a village of paper bags had colonized the space, their asymmetrical balance keeping them from staying put. Now, whenever you opened the door, a whole stack threatened to crash down and block the door from closing again. And that was just the one room.

Or it might be the overall shabbiness of the mansion, the way he refused to call a carpenter or a plumber when the rot in the house and pipes, but it took months before he transmuted the problem away, and by that time there were more leaks and cracks.

Or his confrontational, pedantic method of instruction, arbitrarily allowing or disallowing the use of alchemy, his library, or alchemy research sets. He'd banned a couple of his pupils from speaking for days in a row with no explanation beforehand. Sometimes he kept them up well past midnight doing menial tasks or rewriting a principle or ethical mantra 12 thousand times. Many of them broke from not being allowed into town or a day off from studying.

This latest boy, Master Roy Mustang, had managed to make it 3 months, only having one row with his petulant mentor.

"If I don't write her back, she'll worry! I promised her I'd let her know how my lessons were going!" the boy pleaded as Berthold stormed past Riza in the kitchen and tossed the letter his student spent the last 20 minutes hunched over at the dining table into the stove.

"There will be no frivolous distractions," came Berthold's unwavering commandment and the boy let out a frustrated sigh in a surefire way to tick the old alchemy master off. And off he went. The rest of the evening was filled with an endless lecture on the benefits of isolation for focus during intensive learning, and the importance of humility and obedience in young students. The boy had ceased pushing after that, but the increase in letters addressed to him was probably seen as proof his concerns were justified and Berthold was wrong. There'd be another fight. Any day now.

Riza pulled her boots on, the baskets for the weekend market ready and waiting on the porch. Today was immaculately planned out. First groceries, then darning the coat Berthold refused to replace. Then fishing. If she caught anything early enough, she'd hike across the lake and into the woods. The small, underground cave she found last summer made for a perfectly soundproof firing range - it had been a few days since she got any practice. An hour or two there, then she'd slip back with the fish and make dinner.

The front door creaked behind her as she laced her feet into the well-worn leather. She glanced over her shoulder, seeing her father's faded brown robe in the corner of her eyes.

"Take him with you."

Riza's fingers paused mid-loop. She sat up and turned around fully. Who, his student? _Take him to the market?_ she looked in askance. Was he serious?

"Keep him busy," Berthold said. He looked distracted.

"Someone's paying you a visit," Riza guessed.

Berthold scowled. "They're sending another of their money grabbers." He ran his hand through his greasy hair. "I'll handle them. Just, keep him out of the way." His instruction given, he limped back to his study. Riza frowned after him. His knee was giving him trouble again. Perhaps that would help convince the collectors whatever payments he missed couldn't be helped. Still, he really ought to get the doctor to come by and have a look at it. It had always bothered him, but it seemed to be getting worse every year.

"Boy!" she heard him shout up the stairs. So much for the afternoon at the improvised range. Berthold herded the young man out. "Your lesson today - assist Ms Hawkeye. Follow every instruction she gives you. Riza, work him hard." Berthold scooped up a pair of shoes from the rack and tossed them onto the porch before shutting the front door firmly. The boy sat dutifully on the stoop and put on his shoes. He stood and faced Riza, holding out a hand.

"Can I carry the baskets for you, Ms Hawkeye?" Roy Mustang asked.

"No, thank you, but the icebox is around the back," she replied. Babysitting her father's apprentices was more than enough extra work without them interfering with her system with all their 'help'.

They walked the gravel path that led to the hub of houses and stores that made up the small village. "Today," she told him, "we'll get fresh vegetables and meat for the market. Then we'll go to the lake and catch some fish for supper." The firing range would have wait for another day.

Mustang nodded, keeping up with her fast pace easily.

It turned out he was actually quite a good assistant. He knew which fruits and vegetables would stay the longest and showed no qualms about the awful smell at the butchers. He didn't speak much to Riza, but he made pleasant small talk with the vendor and offered smiles to girls his age as they passed. Once she caught him watching her, but when she looked again he was busy with some interesting lint in his pockets.

The walk to the lake was as silent as the one into town. It was strange. This boy was Berthold's 17th apprentice, but he was the first that didn't bother Riza. He'd gotten the opportunity to spend time alone in her company, but never once had he addressed her flirtatiously, protectively, or condescendingly. In fact, he almost seemed reverent. For the first time in many years, she found herself curious about one of Berthold's students.

"Where are you from?"

Mustang's steps slowed marginally. "Central," he answered plainly.

"And your parents? Where did they come from?"

"They're from Central, too, as far as I know." There was a laugh in his voice, and Riza flushed with the realization that he'd caught on to her actual inquiry. Subtlety never was her strong suit.

"My grandmother was from Xing if that's what you wanted to know." He hopped a few feet ahead of Riza, the full icebox securely held in place on his shoulder, and kicked a stone into a nearby tree trunk. "You could have just asked."

"No, I couldn't have," Riza replied, causing the boy to look back at her with an unimpressed expression. "It's rude to point out when someone looks different."

Mustang shrugged and kept walking. "I didn't think you cared about those kinds of things."

Riza stared at his back. Since when did this _boy_ start making deductions about her? She was barely around the house as it was - he could barely have made a passing impression of her. He began walking faster, finding a path in the undergrowth as they left the road behind. Riza hurried after him.

"What about you?" he asked, hefting the weight of the icebox onto his other shoulder. "Where is your family from?"

"We don't have an interesting background. We're just Amestrian." This was the right way to the lake - had he come down to the waterside before?

Mustang let out a huff, casting another flash of onyx at her. "You don't have a foreign family to be interesting. I think you're very interesting," he said.

Riza scowled. She took it all back: he was just as irritating as any of the others.

Fishing was an activity that went well with conversation. Jenny used to sit with her sometimes before her dad inherited some land outside North City and they moved. Today, as the afternoon faded into early evening, neither Riza or Mustang attempted any further discussion until the sun fell low on the horizon. Riza left him clumsily gutting the fish as she trekked home with the icebox. As she came up the path, Berthold stepped out of the house. Riza sighed to herself - the collectors were still here and she'd have to keep Mustang occupied for a little longer. At least this had to happen in the middle of summer. There were still hours more daylight left.

Berthold met her much farther from the house, nearly running to make sure he stopped her before she reached the gate. That was... unusual. Were they more persistent, today? He stopped when he reached her. What he said once he caught his breath sank Riza's heart.

"Find somewhere else to spend the night. They're not leaving yet."

Riza's eyes lowered from Berthold's face to the front door of her home, less than 100 meters ahead. A door that opened, revealing a woman around her father's age, an aristocratic streak of white crossing her forehead where the rest of her tightly bound hair remained a thick brown. The maroon travel dress spoke of her significant class.

"Will she be gone tomorrow?" Riza asked, pushing her disappointment away for the walk back to the lake.

"I don't know." Berthold fished some crumpled bank notes out of his pocket and pressed it into her hand. "Come back in the morning before the milkman. You're the local delivery girl."

"Brother Berthold?" called the woman from the door, lilting the harsh sounds in his name.

Slowly, Riza looked back up into her father's suddenly terrified face. "Do you have a safe place to spend the night?" he asked, his eyes averted.

"Yes, father," Riza whispered, not trusting her voice. She was barely keeping her shock off her face. Apparently, she didn't do a good enough job. Berthold flinched like she'd punched him.

"Go. It's going to rain tonight." He snatched the icebox from her hands like her presence stung him and limped back up the pathway, shoulders straining. "I'll be with you, sister!" he called back.

Riza turned around and walked steadily down the road. "The regular boy was held up on another delivery, so they had to send their girl instead," she heard the explanation he shouted out. So, the woman didn't know about Riza, and Berthold didn't want her to. Good to get the story straight, Riza thought bitterly.

He hadn't wanted her grandfather in their lives - that made sense. Berthold was passionately opposed to the fuhrer's militaristic control of Amestris and the constant border wars, and General Grumman sat on a council table with Fuhrer Bradley himself. What would the reason be this time? That beautiful woman, Berthold's sister, Riza's aunt. Why couldn't she know about her?

Riza forced herself to walk steadily. No running until the road turned the bend around the trees. It took more effort than should be reasonable. Her eyes stung, her chest suddenly heavy and the air too thick. If she couldn't run, there wasn't much else to do, she sniffed, and tears were falling from her eyes to the gravel as she bowed her head and walked on. By the time she turned the bend and stepped into the woods that led to the lake and the boy she was about to have to look after, Riza was done crying. That's just who Berthold was. He always had a reason for doing what he did, and they were always good reasons. He also believed no one could ever grasp the way his mind worked, so why waste time and energy trying to explain. The result was meanness and cruelty. This time was no different.


	3. Chapter 3

AN: Thank you so so much for your reviews! This was an exciting chapter to write! I hope you enjoy the read :)!

Disclaimer: Everything belongs to Hiromu Arakawa. I own nothing.

Riza washed her face and made herself presentable before returning to the shed. Mustang was waiting on a sizable rock, the cleaned and kitchen-ready fish beside him in the old tin bucket. He stood up, dusting his hands off on the legs of his trousers, and picked up the bucket, ready to go.

"We're sleeping here," Riza told him without preamble.

His mouth fell open. "Is... is this a part of my training?" he stammered.

"If you like." Riza walked into the shed, leaving him trying to make the sudden radical shift in the way he saw his day panning outfit into a context he could wrap his head around. "Start a fire," she ordered.

It was a good thing she had restocked the kerosene and replaced the rotting floorboards a few weeks ago. It would probably stay waterproof through a short summer shower. But she was clear headed now, and the heaviness in the air wasn't her own shock-response anymore. They were due a thunderstorm, the radio weather woman had said earlier today.

She gathered a pot, the makeshift grill and some skewers she'd crafted over the last few years. A glance at the open shelves reaffirmed her certainty that there wasn't anything that could be turned into bedding. The blankets and fleeces that should have been here still hung on the laundry lines at the house. They'd just have to make do.

Mustang was kneeling beside the ring of stones, stacking twigs messily in a crisscross pattern.

"What are you doing?" Riza put the grill down and marched over.

"Starting a fire?" Mustang replied. "Why? Am I doing it wrong?"

"Yes. Go skewer the fish. I'll make the fire." She shook the twigs loose and shoved them out of the campfire ring. These great big city boys never knew how to do anything. At 17, he was at least two years her elder, and he couldn't even start a fire.

Mustang grumbled a little and grabbed the bucket of fish while Riza laid out some tinder and picked up the flintstone that sat on one of the rock-seats.

"Did Master Hawkeye say why we're spending the night out here?" Mustang asked conversationally. "Not that I'm complaining. It's a good night to sleep out in the open country air. What? Why are you making that face? What's so funny?"

"You'll definitely experience some country air tonight," Riza threw him a grin mid-strike. The flint sparked. "It's going to rain."

Mustang groaned, slumping off of the rock dramatically. Riza felt her grin widen. She gently sprinkled tinder on the source of the thin line of smoke until a small flame appeared.

"Think of it as a character building exercise," Mustang said with an accepting sigh.

"What does that mean?"

"It's something a mentor of mine said to me once," Mustang said, a small, warm smile on his face that had nothing to do with his surroundings. "It means things happen, good and bad, things we like and don't. We're defined by our reactions, as well as our actions. That strengthens our character, just like a strongman builds their muscles."

"I understand." Riza finished setting up the grill and Mustang placed the skewered fish over the crackling fire before sitting opposite her. "You have a lot of mentors."

"I like to keep their company," he said with a cheeky grin. "Wise words come in handy with the ladies."

Riza glared at him and he had the good sense to look abashed. It faded quicker than strictly decent, becoming firm and intense. "Your father is a genius. I wouldn't be here if I didn't believe that."

"I know," Riza said, already having let him off the hook. She'd waited for any sign that this boy thought he knew better than his teacher, to stake his ground and hold onto it, but it never came. Something told her he wasn't the kind of person to let it go and flop around in Berthold's control until the alchemy master got sick of his spinelessness and tossed him out, either. Which meant he was being genuine. The respect in his voice when he asked Berthold questions, the way he lit up with true fascination under his long, ranting explanations, his willingness to listen and obey even if he didn't understand - he was enchanted. She was too grateful Berthold had finally found an apprentice who loved him, she couldn't bring herself to judge Mustang's naivety.

She rotated the spits and sat back to watch the flames, regretting the loss of the fresh vegetables that Berthold was probably turning into an inedible stew for his sister. Dull thunder rolled over the hills; the branches stood still, alert before the oncoming storm. The boy was staring again. She looked up to tell him off. The firelight was in his eyes, and for some reason, Riza entertained the thought that he could read minds.

"I think I just figured it out. He treats you exactly like he treats me." His dark eyelashes cast long shadows on his cheeks as the wind whistled over the lake and through the trees, sending the forest into a wild round of chatter.

She hadn't thought of it like that in years. The boy held her gaze - brilliant, dark reflections that looked at her and saw... what, exactly?

"Why?" he asked.

The question, this conversation - no, the entire day, Riza suddenly saw how surreal it all was. She was hiding in the woods from the aunt she never knew she had as a storm approached, and Roy Mustang just became the most interesting thing in the world.

He leaning in closer so his whole face looked like it was shrouded in smoke.

"It's how he sees people." The words came out of her as though he had compelled them. No, that wasn't right. She _wanted_ to tell him. He'd hardly known her three months and he was the first person who had actually seen her father's relationship with her. Not watched with indignant or sadistic curiosity, but observed. It should have felt intrusive or violating but oddly, it touched her. Instead of pitying her, he empathized.

"He builds constructs of people because they're too unpredictable for him."

The north wind sent blasts of cool wind low across the lake, thunder shaking the ground. The air thickened, becoming humid and heavy around the campfire. They wouldn't be able to sit here for much longer. Roy sat back, listening thoughtfully as Riza continued.

"Alchemy makes sense. People are uncontrollable variables. Free will combined with alchemy's potential constantly terrifies him. On top of that, he gave up trying to follow the rules of social interaction. He says they stop the mind from thinking clearly."

"He just sorts people into broad categories of responsibilities and expectations," Roy said quietly, reaching over to add a few more twigs to the fire.

Riza shrugged. "It's a social shortcut."

"I get the feeling he doesn't update those often," Roy said dryly, but without any ill feeling.

"No, he tends to dole the same basic templates out. You're actually based off of an early prototype for me."

The surprise and confusion on Roy's face were almost comical. "He wanted you to be an alchemist?" Roy frowned, managing to sound both amused and a little disappointed.

"I wanted to be one, too. But I after I learned a little, I realized it wasn't for me." Riza poked at the closest fish until it turned over. That was the last time he taught her anything. "I noticed it when he got his first apprentices, that he was expecting them to think the way I did, and need the same type of guidance."

"It's working pretty well for me," Roy flashed her another smile, this one pridefully pleased.

Riza returned his smile wryly. "I guess you and my younger self have something in common."

"Yeah." He looked past her to the lake. "It's getting dark pretty fast, huh?"

The gild that should be lining the edges of the leaves and letting in shafts of golden-orange sunlight was absent, the bark beneath the branches cast in deep shadows. The surface of the lake had grown dull and restless. A thick smell of moist upturned soil and water hung over the ground.

Riza checked the fish. Not done yet. She sighed. They didn't have time anymore. Thick rings started forming on the lake where the first raindrops struck the surface. "Come on." She snatched up the bucket, fishing equipment, and flint and hurried inside the shed. Roy held the door open, letting in what little light filtered through the rapidly darkening woods until Riza lit the lamp. The howl of the wind dimmed immediately behind the closed.

"Guess we're really roughing it tonight." Roy looked at the empty bucket that once held dinner, managing to sound both resolved and regretful.

"There aren't any blankets here either," Riza told him, "and the wood is rotten along the struts and the roof. If it rains too hard and the lake starts rising, this place is going to be no drier than out there and we'll have to move."

Roy's face dropped with every new dismal piece of news, but when she mentioned moving he grew angry. "So, we have to go out there in the pouring rain? We'll get sick! I can't afford to get sick!"

Riza gave him a flat expression in exchange for his unhelpful remark.

"Where are we going to go if it floods?" he demanded, gesturing wildly to the floorboards as if they were already letting lakewater in. "Back to the mansion?"

"No, we can't go there." She didn't mean to be so sharp, but that was the one place they couldn't go, no matter what. She had to think of somewhere else.

The cave! Ice closed around Riza's heart. The cave was underground. There hadn't been any heavy rainfall since she'd found it and turned it into her personal retreat. Her rifle was hidden there. If the cave flooded... all those hours working, the secretive shopping and intercepting the postman.…

"Well, wherever we go, we should head there now." Roy rummaged through the shelves. "It's stupid to wait until the rain gets even worse. This doesn't feel like it's going to be a nice little shower."

"You're right," Riza realized, joining in the search. She found the other bucket and its lid on the lowest shelf. The extinguished lantern, flint and tinder were shut in and the bucket sealed with fishing rope. Roy hitched it under his arm, and the two of them stepped out into the downpour.

ooooo

They were soaked to the bone within seconds of leaving the shed. By the time they reached the wooden bridge that crossed a narrow portion of the lake, the water had risen up the embankment, swamping the posts. It was a good thing they had left when they did - any later and the bridge would have been under a foot of lake sludge. The river sloshed up into Riza's already waterlogged boots, congealed mud coating everything below the knees and making her feet heavy and unwieldy. The trees gave way to a pass of slippery rocks, gushing with brand new micro-waterfalls.

"I always knew I was going to die on a field trip, " Roy shouted, squinting through the sheets of water that streamed mercilessly from the sky.

"Can this conversation wait until after we've reached shelter?" Riza shouted back. Getting to the cave was going to be much trickier than she thought. The pass was a steep hike on a good day, but now she could barely see three meters ahead. She grabbed a thin stick off a broken branch on the ground and dug the mud out of the treads of her boots. "Come on. We're going to head up towards a landing in the rocks."

"Are you insane?" Roy's eyes were wide and terrified in the brief daylight as lightning crashed above their heads and the sky split asunder with an ear-shattering roar.

Riza took the bucket from him, pulling him closer to hear her over the storm. "I know what I'm doing. Just stay close to me."

"Just, if I fall..." his voice was lost in another roll of thunder.

She wouldn't let that happen. Riza grabbed his hand with her free one, the other using the bucket as a shield against the wind, and dragged him onward. Eventually, she had to let go in favor of gripping the rocks and branches along the way to make up for the loss of traction from her feet. Although the rain bore down, Riza found herself sweating from the exertion. The landing came into view and she dragged herself onto it, her groan lost to the monstrous roar. She put the bucket down and turned back to grab Roy by the arm and pull him the rest of the way up. Together, they staggered into the opening of the cave and collapsed against the inner wall, coughing and gasping like they were half-drowned.

As Riza's wiped the water out of her eyelashes, a glimmer caught her adjusting eyes. A thin stream had formed in the entry, heading deeper into the slope of the cave, towards her little soundproof haven.

"We have to keep going." She rushed into the darkness. Damp, clammy fingers grabbed her upper arm and pulled her back, forcing her to a halt.

Roy looked like a drowned kitten, his dark hair matted against his forehead. "I... Riza, I'm tired, hungry, cold."

She felt his trembling all along his arm and heard the shiver in his voice.

"And I'm pretty afraid right now."

He said the words so calmly, trying to be mature about it, but it was there in his voice. A fear of Riza, and what she'd do now that he had admitted weakness. He was 17, she remembered, nearly a young man, telling her he was afraid.

She removed his hand from her arm and held it in both of hers, trying to reassure him she understood.

"In that tunnel, there's a blanket, two cans of beans, some flint, firewood, a torch, a rifle and 5 rounds of bullets," Riza said calmly, looking him straight in the eye. "Most of that is on a shelf but the firewood is on the ground. The water is heading that way. If we get everything out before it floods, we can start a fire, get warmed up and finally have dinner."

The fear on Roy's face melted into hopeful determination. He squeezed her hands firmly. "Let's get that blanket."

ooooo

Today shouldn't be real.

The latest dilemma came from a very reasonable problem. They couldn't start a fire.

The firewood was sitting in an inch of gathered water. It seemed to be filtering away somewhere even further down, but not as fast as it was trickling in. The rest of Riza's supplies were salvageable and resolutely carried to the cave entrance. The opening was the only sheltered form with any light at all, if only in the form of occasional streaks of lightning that went off like the flash of a gigantic camera and painted the world in sharp black and white for a second.

It turned out that not only was there not a dry spot of ground to be found but somewhere along the trek, rainwater had seeped into the bucket. The lantern wick, flint, and tinder were as wet as the clothes they were wearing.

With starting a fire of any size out of the question, they retrieved the firewood and repurposed it into a stacked platform - a short-term buffer against sitting in water. Roy had been shivering so hard she worried he might shatter his teeth against each other. He wasn't a hopeless gentleman, Riza realized when it didn't take much convincing to get him to strip out of his soaking clothes and claim the dry blanket.

Riza tried to hold out for as long as she could but the cold was setting in her bones. The muscles in her back and shoulders tensed painfully and she couldn't relax them. Her toes burned.

"Mr Mustang," she said, unable to bring herself to face him. "I'm sorry to have to put you in this position. You may want to put at least something on, even if it is still wet because I'm afraid it's not safe for me to keep sitting out here like this, either."

She felt the young man stiffen beside her. On a practical, survival level, she was glad for the heat that rushed to her face at the pure audacity of her own statement. Most dominantly, though, she was having what could only be described as an experience of transcendence.

 _This_ was how today was really playing out. Calm, boredom, curiosity, annoyance, surprise, anger, confusion, guilt, sympathy, trust, fear. Those were the emotions she could list, pinpointing each complex moment in the day when she experienced it. She'd reached a new level of emotional fatigue and perhaps her mind was protecting itself by disassociating from the utter shame and embarrassment of kicking off the mud-caked boots and thick trousers and stripping out of the drenched blouse that sucked itself into her ribs like a vice, while Roy stared dutifully in the opposite direction.

He flinched when her clammy, wet shoulder hit the bare flesh of his now very warm arm. "This is not why I thought I would die on a field trip," he whined as Riza icy toes and limbs touched his while she rearranged herself until her whole body was submerged in the blanket.

"You're not dead," she said stonily, leaving out the _yet_. He would be if he tried anything funny.

Riza tried to hold herself still against the shivers that now coursed freely through her body on reaction to the heat Roy was giving off. It was bad enough that she had to tell him she was climbing in here with him. She wasn't about to initiate any kind of contact. Tomorrow was going to be difficult enough to deal with without a new brand of hormonal confusion thrown in the mix.

The very coals of hell pierced the soles of her feet and she yelped, nearly kneeing Roy in the thigh.

"Hey! Watch it! I'm just-" Roy's face and shoulders gave off significantly more heat. "The faster you warm up, the better for the both of us, right?"

His burning toes touched her feet again and she curled her legs out to embed her toes into their searing warmth. The length of his arm pressed against hers, his hand across his own chest, they watched as rivulets flowed steadily into the crevices between the boulders into the cave. Beyond the sheet of water, the once green world a blur of billowing gray. Gradually, Riza's shiver diminishing, the warmth and darkness finally letting exhaustion take root.

"Why do you think you'll die on a field trip?" Riza asked drowsily.

Roy chuckled. "Equivalent exchange," he said, sounding more awake than he should, given the taxing day and late hour. "I'll answer your question if you answer one of mine."

Riza groaned and pushed herself up a little straighter against the wall.

Roy took that as agreement. "It's something I've always imagined. I've never been on a field trip before, but I always expected it would be more dangerous than usual if Master Hawkeye ever sent me on one. He doesn't seem like someone who holds back on practical exercises. Of course, Master Hawkeye will probably end up killing me anyway for sitting here... practically... " his voice trailed off sheepishly.

His embarrassment was faintly amusing, but his words saddened her. He saw today, this 'a day in the life of Riza', as a planned and ordained learning experience from his teacher. That cover story was the reason they were awkwardly sitting side by side in their damp undergarments. The truth pressed against Riza's lips, begging to be spoken.

"Does that answer your question?"

Riza nodded dismally, knowing his fear of Berthold's reaction was unfounded, this time. In light of the events currently taking place at Hawkeye Manor.

"Good. My turn." Roy's careful movement shifted the sticks beneath them. "Who do you want to be when you grow up?"

Her dwindling mood lurched. She threw him an acerbic glare.

"I'm serious," Roy insisted defensively. "Besides, you obviously know I want to be an alchemist, and I want to be a good one, for the record."

"You want to be an alchemist who does useful things for the people around you." Riza's cheeks burned under the surprised stare her proclamation merited - had he thought she hadn't observed his lessons? "I've heard the questions you ask my father."

"Why else do anything?" Roy said with a grin. "Listen!" he shifted again. "I've been thinking of ways alchemy can be used efficiently to expand the railway system. If people could travel more, villages like Yiug could get more traffic, which means more business."

"That sounds useful," Riza noted, not sure why it didn't surprise her that he had thought about how to better the welfare of Yiug's residents, nor why her chest felt warmer for hearing him say it.

He leaned back. "I've done my part of the bargain. It's your turn."

Riza relaxed back against the wall. "I don't know." The rain seemed to be settling into a friendlier rhythm, though night had well and truly fallen. "I have a plan. Go to the city, get a job, probably find a hobby. Live a normal life. I have enough saved up to get the ticket and a friend of mine who lives in North City can set me up at the phone company."

She watched the clouds shift, letting in a dim silvery haze. She'd never spoken the plan out loud before. It sounded too simple.

"It sounds like you have the whole next stage ready to launch," Roy said causally, contradicting her thoughts. "Why haven't you done it?"

"Because there's nothing more than that." Her back slid a little down the wall, her eyelids following their example heavily. "Like you said, why do something if it isn't useful? I don't want to start heading in any direction just for the sake of being on the move."

"You need something to fight for," Roy repeated. His arm slipped around her shoulder and her head was pulled onto his chest. It should have offended her. She should have pulled away - this closeness wasn't strictly necessary and would make tomorrow that much more awkward. But was so warm and comfortable to not have the sharp sticks poking into her neck and shoulders. To lie down just for a second and feel so warm after being so cold. "What are you fighting for here?" His voice rumbled in his chest against her ear.

Riza smiled. "Tomorrow. A lot can happen tomorrow."


	4. Chapter 4

The solitary call of the blackbird echoed across the dripping tree branches. The air hung still and heavy. In the quietness, each drop and gurgle melded together in a gentle white noise, like a warm glove around the mind. Shame about the blackbird.

Riza dragged herself gently from the cocoon of the blanket and pulled on her still wet clothes. Sleep scratching in her eyes, the return of the damp clinging to her skin, it was very unhappily that she wrestled her sopping boots back on before nudging Roy's leg persistently.

"I need to go get something," she whispered loudly.

"Hm?" he mumbled, rolling over and shoving himself inelegantly on his elbow, eyes squinting at her sleepily.

"I'm going," Riza repeated, standing up and brushing her trousers down. "Wait here for me to return. Don't try to go back to the manor on your own."

Roy sat up, the blanket falling around his waist. "What...?" he began mumbling, scrambling to rub his eyes clear. Riza stepped out onto the ledge. The rain had loosened smaller stones through the pass back to the woods. The sun wouldn't rise for another half hour, and the pale moonlight had long disappeared, but the sky was paling just a little. If she was careful, Riza was confident she could make it down to the tree line without incident.

Roy didn't call after her. She half-slid, half-clambered down to the woods and slogged her way, shivering anew, back across the swollen stream, and onto the road. It was half washed away, strewn with debris. Riza's eyes softened - the milkman wouldn't be coming out with the road in this state.

Well, enough was enough. Every inch of her was covered in mud and leaves and damp. She hadn't eaten in hours, and she'd spent the night in a storm. Whatever story Berthold wanted to tell his sister, she was going inside and putting something dry on.

The house stood darkly against the pale indigo sky. As she drew nearer, the windows and porch took definition. The lantern above the door hadn't been lit all night, but below it, seated on the step was a floppy brown coat.

Riza walked past the open gate, stepping over puddles until she reached the wet and muddy porch. She climbed to the top step where her father slouched and sat down beside him, the length of the step between them.

Berthold exhaled through his nose; his head dropped to his chest. Riza watched him dispassionately, waiting.

The gutter dripped rhythmically onto the earth. Berthold set his eyes on a far distant horizon. "She's not your family. She's not even mine." His jaw was tight, his explanation coming through his teeth. "She's only a deranged woman with little grasp on reality."

Riza remembered how the woman spoke her father's name - playful, like a teasing caress. "Who is she?"

Berthold wanted her to look away. Riza staunchly refused. He owed her the truth. She wouldn't leave. Not without it.

He struggled, fighting with how best to answer her and bring her resentful demands to an end. He'd paid his penance. His hair was plastered to his skull and neck, the worn robe he wore when he felt it was too chilly inside heavy with recent wet. Riza's chest tightened. He'd gone looking for them, probably when the rain started dying down. He may have even gotten so far as the woods. But he was no match for the hike on a good day in broad daylight, and he knew it.

He also knew intentions and limitations didn't matter when someone was hurt because of your actions, so he sat all night in the rain out of solidarity and punishment.

Riza never wanted that. For all his genius for mathematics, calculus, and metaphysics, Berthold had yet to learn that punishing himself accomplished nothing, and he could avoid doing it all together if would simply stop treating her like everything he told her would kill her! "Father-"

"Before your mother..." he blurted out, silencing her. "I met Hana. Hana was willing to test the very boundaries of thought on what alchemy was. She made massive, highly speculative arguments, mostly about ecology and the flow of life." His brow pulled together in a bitter scowl. "I found my question, the formula I have spent my life trying to crack, based on a proposition she made in a throwaway example."

Fire. That's what Berthold had given his life to understanding. Not the flame itself, or even the heat it gave off, though he despised the cold. He certainly wasn't enthralled with fire's destructive capacity, either. It was the idea of breaking it down into manageable numbers. Numbers that would control the uncountable element. He'd devoted his whole life to cracking it.

Riza remained still, listening, waiting.

"It turned out her ethical boundaries were mostly a front. I broke off contact, and we went our separate ways."

Yes. This story also made perfect sense. Riza had, in fact, heard a rant or two about the alchemist who inspired Berthold's research performing increasingly dangerous experiments on unwitting neighbors. Berthold had raged that it was alchemists like that who ended up being used to justify the state's control of alchemical knowledge.

He should have told her about this woman before. "Why was she here?" Riza pressed, unrelenting.

"She's losing her mind, what does it matter?" Berthold snapped. "I told you, you shouldn't know the details of my research. It's not safe-"

Riza stood up. "No. No, it's not safe. But last night, neither was I. Or you, or your student. The world is not a safe place, regardless of the people acting in it. We need to look out for each other. You said that."

She forced herself to breathe and unclench her fists. Once you shouted, you lost the fight. It was the same as throwing a punch during recess. Her heart pounded. This wasn't the first time she'd faced Berthold down, but the rush of defiance and trepidation was as intoxicating and frightening as ever.

"I respect your boundaries to the best of my ability," she went on, her determination not enough to hide the tremor in her voice, "but I won't put any of our health on the line again. Not when you won't tell me why you're putting me in danger."

"Don't threaten me!" Berthold rose like moving stone in the slow dawn, filling Riza's entire view. "You're still a child! So arrogant and immature! How dare you think you know better!"

Riza kept her face blank. God, but she was so angry and tired, she despaired as Berthold's towering rage spread its arms towards her and adrenaline charged through her veins to meet it. Look the monster in the eye, dead on, and withstand the assault.

"While you run around and climb trees and put books on shelves in petty excuses for libraries, there is an entire network out there of powerful people who hold the power to snuff out your existence with a snap of their fingers!" Berthold hissed. "You don't understand the politics! But you shop with their currency..."

His tone became sneering. "The Fuhrer, generals, state alchemists... They buy good men and women, trick them into selling their souls in the name of patriotism and the greater good of the _people_ when all they want are tools to use and dispose of on their way to amassing more power and wealth."

Riza didn't so much as blink. This was how it started if she played the game right. A mean, exhausting, rigidly turn-based game, where he got all the shots.

"And if those leeches weren't a good enough example of humanity at it's _finest_ , there are people like Hana!" He threw an arm out in mock courtesy.

Bingo.

"All the money in the world, no desire to share it, and a lust for fame and adoration! She is a genius, with a mind centuries ahead of our era, and with all that knowledge she uses her ability on weaker people who couldn't have known better or protected themselves... People like her only value life as it suits their needs."

If that were true, the people of Amestris needed good, intelligent men and women willing to do the hard work and become powerful enough to do something about it. "You don't fight to help them." The words were past her lips before she could stop them. "The creed 'Alchemist, be thou for the people' needn't only apply to state alchemists."

"I won't play their game!" Berthold shouted. But the anger melted immediately, the words hardly fading over the fields before he had dropped back onto the step, eyes turned away in submission. "I won't do it. All a man has, at the end of the day, are his principles."

"He also has his legacy," Riza replied, unable and unwilling to make her tone more sympathetic. He didn't need to agree with her - in fact, Riza was sure he wouldn't. But he had to hear her.

Berthold stared bleary past the trees. "Roy. He'll be my legacy. And you. My principles will live on with you."

Riza took several deep breaths against her simmering disappointment. She couldn't share those beliefs. How could he commit himself to hiding from the world when there was something he could do to help?

"I don't see the world like you do," she finally said, bowing her head in apology.

"What are you talking about?" Berthold grumbled dismissively.

How could she explain something she felt only in the moment?

Jenny cried on her shoulder by the lake as she told Riza she was moving away. It was the first time either of the girls had cried in front of each other, and Riza had been glad for Jenny's tears because she knew she'd miss her, too.

The anticipation of opening the letter that she'd snagged and hidden from the morning post, that made four hours of arithmetic crawl with sadistic slowness. The relief and delight at the polite, serious tone and wealth of information cleanly penned by her grandfather's, the general's, hand.

The spike of pride when her bullet hit its target dead on.

Those moments were valuable. They were the whole point of living. When was the last time Berthold had stopped being terrified of everything and everyone long enough to have a moment?

It didn't matter. He wouldn't understand. He'd told her as much as he was willing to, and she didn't have the energy to drag anything else out of him.

"Will your colleague be coming back?" she asked.

"You don't need to worry about her," he said tonelessly, staring out across the fields again. "One of her experiments went wrong years ago, knocked her memory right out. She sometimes remembers a few things and gets lost on little journeys. Her private orderlies picked her up when the storm broke."

The truth that was probably a lie. Riza stepped off the porch and walked away from him, back to the woods. The last of last night's clouds were disintegrating in the blushing east. "Put something dry on, and start the kettle," she said, reaching the gate. "When I've brought your student back and we've all had hot baths, I'll make some food. I meant what I said, father."

She closed the gate behind her, her wilted pride reinvigorated when her voice didn't tremble this time. "I won't put our health at risk if you don't tell me the reason. It's not a game, to me."

ooooo

Roy was waiting at the far bank of the overflow bridge, the duffle bag that housed the rifle slung on his shoulder, clearly expecting to be yelled at.

"I'm sorry, I couldn't wait!" he started saying, cutting himself off when Riza wordlessly crossed the sludgy bridge, took the bag from him and headed back through the bright crisp trees towards the shed. He stayed silent, letting himself fall behind her just like on the way to the market, graciously leaving her to her thoughts.

Not that she had any left. The rest of the day was planned during the walk back to the cave. Check on Widow Coleman after breakfast. Take the rifle to Mr Bailey's on the way. Bring the milk back before supper. Rewash the fleece and blankets on the line. She had tasks assigned for the two men, too, scrubbing the mud from the porch, yard, and walkway. At the moment, her mind was blankly running on automatic. Nonetheless, she appreciated the silence, and he was kind enough to let it last until Riza had stored the duffle bag in the now lopsided shed and were heading back to the manor.

"Is everything alright?" he asked, his tone carefully bland.

"The manor is in a bit of a state after the storm," Riza told him, hating every word she spoke. "There's a lot of work to be done."

"Oh," he said. "I see."

Thin streams of light began to reflect off the droplets.

Roy broke the silence again, his voice light and casual. "Yesterday, being your assistant, spending the night in the rain. That wasn't a training exercise."

That was it. Riza just didn't have it in her anymore. She hung her head, not caring that she'd just given the lie up. It wouldn't help, wishing she could close her eyes and disappear but she inhaled deeply, wanting it anyway, more badly than anything.

Roy caught up to her side, bending down to look at her face. He pulled back, taking her silence as agreement again. "I suppose Master Berthold didn't want me around at the manor for the day," he continued just as casually, a tiny frown on his lips, "The question is, is it alchemy related, or adult world related?"

What was he doing? Riza watched him count his options out like he was revealing his master scheme. He turned to her, a laugh on his lips, though his eyes were unusually tight.

"Master Berthold is pretty close-lipped about how far along he is in his research on how to control fire," Roy mused, "He could have spent the day doing experiments or testing some of the theories we talked about. On the other hand, he's also a proud man who wouldn't want me to be involved in the private running of his estate."

Astute observations, Riza noted, letting him carry on his detective work without interruption. This was probably how he had spent the last three months analyzing her and her father, she thought, her interest heightening.

"You were pretty adamant we couldn't spend the night somewhere dry," he drawled, "but that wasn't the initial plan. His plans must have taken longer than he thought, so you had to keep me away for the night. My money's on experiments." He slowed his walk, his expression becoming less playful and more reserved. "Will he be angry about how we spent last night?"

"Yes, probably."

Roy looked chagrined. "I'm sorry to put you through so much trouble."

The squelch of wet undergrowth was replaced by the crunch of gravel as they turned onto the road before Riza stopped. Last night wasn't fair at all. Not to her and, especially, not to Roy. His hair had dried in a disarray of dirt and leaf bits, and his clothes gave off a damp, old odor. A thunderstorm wasn't a small event when you had to weather it head on! Roy Mustang had come all the way from Central to learn alchemy, not made to sleep in a storm! Riza couldn't bear it.

She rotated to face him and bowed low. "I'm sorry for endangering you while you are under my father's care. It was our job to make sure you're safe while you are here, and I failed to do my duty and plan ahead better. Please accept my apology."

For a second, she thought he'd laugh at her, his eyebrows climbing into his hairline with his growing confusion. "Alright," he replied uncomfortably, his pale cheeks dusted with pink. "You did well as a survival guide, though," he added, forcing the sentence to sound less awkward by making it matter-0f-fact.

It forced a smile to Riza's face and she carefully suppressed it, turning back to the road feeling a little lighter. "You make a terrible partner in the wild."

"I..!" Roy spluttered. "I was raised in the city! Things are more sophisticated there!"

City brat, she thought. It was actually a struggle to keep her face neutral.

"If you'd been a better teacher-" Roy started.

"What aspiring young alchemist apprentice, under the tutelage of a flame alchemy specialist doesn't know how to start a fire?" Riza demanded.

Roy reeled like she'd slapped him. Drama queen that he was, he bounced right back, sheepishly watching her from the corner of his eyes. "You're 14, and you knew exactly what to do to get us through that storm when everything was going wrong. You had to look after me."

That was true. He really should know more for someone his age. Riza shrugged. "I didn't mind it so much. You were good company. Though, when I tell you to stay put, please listen to me. There aren't any bears in this part of the north, but it's still dangerous for people who aren't used to the area."

"I know, I'm not a kid," he said sourly. His eyes suddenly lit up and he turned to her earnestly. "Then teach me."

She stopped when he did. "What?"

"Let's make it a real thing!" He met Riza's bewildered eyes with conviction in his own. "In order to perform alchemy, the alchemist must be able to use their mind and body to its fullest potential! Train my body! Teach me how to survive in the wild!" With a wide step he was in front of her and on the ground, head planted on the floor.

"Don't you already have enough teachers?" Riza asked, her cheeks reddening in astonishment.

"There's no such thing!" he announced, bowing lower. "Please, Madame Riza! Please teach me!"

Riza openly stared at him, not bothering to hide her furious blush. There was a high probability that he was mocking her, but… he hadn't looked quite so pale when he first arrived in Yiug, had he? Country air suited him as well as it did Berthold. He could probably use a physical coach. The image of herself barking orders at Roy as he ran tracks around the field gave her a shudder. No, that was her father's job. She couldn't do it. No, nope. "No," she said and walked past him.

The gravel scattered as he ran up beside her. "It never hurt to ask." His voice was pleasant and offhanded, accepting her rejection without complaint.

The walk had grown increasingly pleasant as the sun-dried their clothes and hair. Riza felt it when their roles changed; Roy's foot crossed the threshold of the house and Berthold bore down the stairs from his study in a flurry of business. The pupil and the master, and the ghost of a pupil past. Riza left them, heading straight to the bath. Back to uphold the rhythm of the day.

Two weeks later, Riza came home to the aftermath of an explosive row. Roy might respect his teacher, but he was still a boy after all, and Berthold abided no idiocy in his presence. At midnight, she found Roy banished by the shed, fishing pensively in the cool summer breeze.

"Round two for sleeping outdoors?" he called at the sound of her feet crushing the fallen leaves.

Rather than reply, Riza picked a spot near him, stretched out the blanket, and unpacked buns and cheese she'd snuck out her window.

In a swift, hard motion, Roy staked the fishing rod in the ground and scooted to the blanket. Riza left him to his light supper, setting up her cleaning equipment. The grill still needed a good scrub after they'd left their dinner on it. Since she was going to be here all night, now was as good a time as any.

A long hour passed. Roy shifted to occupy a smaller corner of the blanket when Riza finally set the clean grill aside and lay back, gazing at the clear sky. "Shouldn't you be in bed?" he asked.

"Someone has to make sure you don't die in the wild," Riza replied, breathing in the soft, summer breeze, listened to the melody of the crickets and the babble of the stream. "And you're right. It's a good night for camping." It'd been a while since she appreciated the air out here.


End file.
